A SOUTHPORT line-dancing teacher who claimed almost £23,000 in disability benefits to pay her dead son’s drug debts said: “You’d do anything for your children.”

A SOUTHPORT line-dancing teacher who claimed almost £23,000 in disability benefits to pay her dead son’s drug debts said: “You’d do anything for your children.”

Jay Somers, 49, from Birkdale, yesterday spoke exclusively to the Southport Visiter about the threats that led her to become a benefit cheat.

The grandmother-of-five was given a suspended sentence after she was discovered working as a nightclub door supervisor and it later emerged she taught her own line-dancing school.

She said: “It’s been a nightmare. My son got into a lot of trouble years ago. I was severely disabled but I went to work dosed up on painkillers to pay his debts, I needed to help my son out.

“We were getting threats and there was no help, you have to do what’s best to help your kids. Unfortunately at the end of it he hanged himself.”

Her son Martin Wilson, 24, killed himself using the drawstring from his jogging pants while in a cell awaiting a court appearance.

She said she has never got over his death and said: “I’m suffering from depression and feel like life’s not worth living anymore. It’s been an uphill struggle. I don’t want people to think I’m a money grabber, I’d not done it intentionally to have a flashy lifestyle, money doesn’t make you happy. All that money went to pay off his debts.

“I’m so sorry about what I have done and I’m ashamed, I’ve never been in trouble in all my life. I never made any profit from the line-dancing school, it wasn’t running as a business, all the money went into the classes or went to charity. It was a break”

Somers pleaded guilty to four counts of failing to notify the Department for Work and Pensions of a change in circumstances and submitting false benefit claims between 2001 and 2006.

She was given an 11-month custodial sentence suspended for two years at Liverpool Crown Court on Wednesday.

She said: “I had resigned myself to the fact I was going to go away and it would have been my own fault, I’d made my bed and I knew I had to lie in it. But it was such a relief. All my family in court were so pleased I didn’t get sent to prison.”

Jay recovered, but kept making claims

BOUNCER Jay Somers claimed she could only walk a few yards without a stick but taught at her own line dancing school, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

The grandmother claimed she needed help to care for herself but each week taught dancers at Jay-Jay’s ‘country/line dance social night’ at Birchley St Mary’s Social Club.

Somers had flyers printed and was only caught when investigators from the Department of Work and Pensions discovered she was working as a bouncer at Tokyo Jo’s Preston nightclub.

Kevin Slack, prosecuting, said Somers began claiming Disability Living Allowance on the basis her mobility was restricted and she needed caring for at home.

Mr Slack said: “By this time the defendant had begun to hold line dancing classes at Birchley St Mary's club in Billinge.

“The one-and-a-half-hour classes each Tuesday included the defendant demonstrating line dancing moves and taking part.”

She also claimed income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit totalling £22,796.75p.

The initial claim was legitimate, but by December 2001 she had recovered but continued claiming, Mr Slack said.

He said: “She stated she required the use of a stick to walk and needed someone to hold on to her while walking outdoors.

“This was a great exaggeration of the truth.”

Teresa Loftus, mitigating, said Somers was deeply affected by her son’s suicide in 2003, and was working to pay off his drug-debts, over which she had been threatened.

She has now got a £180-a-week job in a factory and is paying back the illegally-claimed benefits at £100 a month.

Sentencing her to an 11-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, Judge Elgan Edwards said: “The public have to be protected from this kind of dishonesty, and although you have had a sad life you have to be aware normally custodial sentences are imposed for cases of this nature.”